The Free of Pern
by Tolakasa
Summary: On a cold, stormy night in Benden Weyr, a story is told, and a secret is kept. Set during the Second Long Interval.


Written for Megan H. in the 2008 Yuletide challenge.

I tried to keep it strictly to the gray areas. Any blatant contradictions to canon are accidental.

* * *

_**The Free of Pern**_

Fierce winds and blinding snow filled the Bowl, driving everyone, from Weyrleader to lowest drudge, deep into the Lower Caverns to congregate near hearths where klah and stew simmered and mugs were passed around to keep fingers and innards toasty warm. The Weyrsinger officiated in the largest gathering-cavern, with his Journeymen and everyone who could sing a note or wrest a decent tone from an instrument, but there were smaller, craft-oriented gatherings throughout the Weyr—sewing, knitting, quilting, leatherwork, all lubricated with gossip and klah. Children ran wild, running errands, ferrying food, and just because they could; adults tolerated more than usual, to a point. Shrieks were met with smacks until one child whispered to another, "B'tor said he'd tell the story!"

In the time it took a dragon to take three trips _between_, all the older children had disappeared from the corridors and were cramming themselves, boys and girls alike, into the small room. The tale that B'tor was known for was not precisely approved, and thus all the more treasured among the tweens here in Benden Weyr. Harpers disapproved of it, and no one breathed a word near the Lord Holders for fear of provoking a more vicious reaction than the thought of Thread returning, but as no Weyrleader had ever forbid it, it had acquired a special status, a thrill all its own. As long as it wasn't told to a child too young to understand all the Teaching Ballads, the Harpers tended to look the other way.

It was not B'tor's story alone, but of the handful of riders who currently knew the full tale, he told it best; he had a Harper's knack for keeping an entire room of otherwise rowdy youngsters in hand. "Every type of dragon has its place," he announced, and the chattering children quieted. "Queens and bronzes are the leaders and produce the eggs. Greens are agile in flight, and blues have the gift for Searching. What claim, then, do browns have?" He paused, letting the tension rise, looking over each enthralled face. "Browns have the unusual.

"It was over two hundred Turns past, when Thread should have fallen and did not, when in late autumn brown Sorroth and his rider T'lur flew patrol over the northern mountains..."

* * *

Dark. Dark as _between_, but hot, sticky. And pain, pain begging for fellis or numbweed, fire and ice and broken bones, worse than any before, worse than the descriptions of Threadscore.

Sorroth—

_Sorroth! Where are you?_

Silence, where there should be a voice. Silence without emptiness. Where was Sorroth?

"_Sorroth!_"

"Shhh," came a voice out of the darkness—not Sorroth, but a human voice. "He is well."

"Can't hear—"

"It is the fever," the voice said, and something was held to his lips. Fellis juice. They were putting him to sleep, he couldn't go to sleep, not until he talked to Sorroth, knew Sorroth was near. He fought the cup.

_She says you must drink_, came the familiar, beloved voice in his head_. You must rest to get better. I am fine. You are not. Drink._

"Sorroth," he whispered, relieved, and fell back into the sticky black nothingness. Sorroth was with him. Nothing could be wrong if Sorroth was still with him.

He woke in an unfamiliar cave, brightly lit by a double row of glowbaskets; Larren, the headwoman of the Lower Caverns, would sniff and call such extravagance wasteful. It was large, but not the least bit chill; he didn't feel a single draft, even though the walls were bare rock and there was no visible hearth. The bed was warm, too, warmer than any he'd had before, though there was not a single fur over him, only fabric—wool, he thought, but that made no sense; furs were warmer and easier to get besides. There was a quilt, too, patched together from bits of weathered black and gray, with a border of undyed fabric. Fine sewing, but no pattern to it, nothing like the fine patchwork of Benden Hold.

Warm, though. Almost too warm. Maybe he was still fevered.

_She says not,_ came Sorroth's welcome voice in his head, and he smiled.

_Where are you?_

Sorroth made a whistling noise, and T'lur turned his head. The dragon peered at him from a short tunnel that clearly led into another, much larger cavern-it had to be, if it held Sorroth's bulk, but the tunnel was only large enough for Sorroth's head. The dragon's whirling eyes betrayed anxiety, and his usually—dark brown hide was lighter than usual, as if he might be off his feed. "Are you all right?"

_I_ _am not fevered._ I_ am fine._ T'lur chuckled at the affronted tone._ This cave is warm and very large and hardly smells of runners at all._ That came with an image of old stone-built stalls and old hay; the larger cavern must have served as a runnerbeast stable at some point._ The children scrub me and oil me, and I play with them._ Sorroth sounded content—more content than he did in the Weyr sometimes; children fascinated him, but weyrbred children were too busy, too respectful, or—occasionally—too frightened to simply _play_ with dragons._ I have told her that you are awake._

"Her?" T'lur echoed, and turned his head, where a human-sized door, possibly of metal, led into another room. A figure in black was coming toward him now, in soft shoes that made no noise on the stone. If not for Sorroth's use of _she_, T'lur would never have been able to guess its sex; the black garments concealed her figure without being either bulky or loose, and her hair was tucked up under a tight black cap. But Sorroth was _always_ right in these matters; T'lur had won a good many marks off his dragon's ability to determine the sex of the unborn, whether human or dragon.

"Sorroth said you were awake," the woman said; her voice was pitched low, and were it not for Sorroth's assurance, T'lur wouldn't have been able to use it to determine a sex either. She had an unusual way of speaking, her words and phrasing just a shard _off_. That happened sometimes in very isolated Holds, he knew, but that was why Harpers were sent to even the smallest cotholds, to make sure an accent stayed only an accent and didn't become an entirely separate language. This was the strongest he'd heard, though she was still understandable.

"He talks to you?"

"He has when needed," she said, setting a tray on the table beside his bed, just as Sorroth piped up, _I like her_. "It took some effort to calm him. He was confused by the chaos in your mind."

Chaos. He didn't remember any chaos—

"You fell ill," she went on, sitting down on a stool so she could pour a mug of—broth? "You have been in and out of fever these two sevendays. It is high winter now." She propped T'lur up with a pair of fat pillows and wrapped his fingers around the mug. "Food first, then medicine."

She wore no knots or colors. "Healer?"

"As much as any. Drink."

He obeyed, watching her as she stirred up another mug-fellis, undoubtedly, and remedies for fevers, and all those other foul-tasting things healers liked to force into their patients. No colors—well, that was not unusual in very isolated Holds, where trained Healers were hard to come by; perhaps she had had to return for marriage or other crisis, half-trained, or had never sought full Master status anyway. He had never seen clothing like hers—and, now that she was closer, he could tell that there was no hair under that cap. Some illness, perhaps, that had left her scalp scarred and hairless, though he could think of none that would have left her face untouched. "What Hold is this?"

"We are beholden to none," was her even reply, but before he could ask what she meant, she added, "Finish your broth." She stood and untucked the covers from around his feet, baring them. "Do you feel this?" She ran her fingers along his toes.

"Yes!"

"Good," she said. "The breaks were severe. I feared there might be nerve damage."

"_Breaks?_" He pushed himself up farther in the bed, and saw the splints on his right leg. "I didn't even feel—" He stopped. "I can't move my leg."

She smiled, in the annoying, superior way every healer had. "I could not have you undoing all my hard work," she said matter-of-factly. "I used drugs to ensure you did not thrash and unseat the breaks before I could get them properly mended. Now that you are full awake, I will ease you back, and put on a proper cast."

He laid back, sipping at the broth. He didn't remember breaking his leg. Come to think of it... He and Sorroth had been flying patrol, and Sorroth wanted to hunt for a snack— That was all he remembered. "I don't understand," he said finally. "How-"

She spread the blankets back over him. "Sorroth landed to feed in the high meadow where our bovines were grazing. While waiting for him to finish, you became disoriented and walked off a cliff. Fortunately, you landed in the fishpond, rather than on the rock. You were already badly fevered when we pulled you out."

"I must have been sick when I left the Weyr," he said. He hadn't felt sick. And he must not have _seemed_ sick, for K'til had been nagging the Wingleaders about maintaining rider health, and Sorroth was as much a fussy old mother as Larren.

"So we decided. You were easier taken care of than Sorroth, of course," she added, and cast a fond smile toward the dragon. "Now," she said, sitting on the stool again, "what is your name?"

"Didn't Sorroth tell you?"

Her eyes hardened. "I wish your _name_. Sorroth could only give me the honorific."

"That's all you—"

"We do not use such things."

T'lur blinked. Some Holds were more informal than others, of course, but _everyone_ honored dragonriders. More than that, the contracted names marked the irrevocable change that occurred at Impression, providing a clean break for those who might otherwise find it difficult to let go. "My mother named me Tarular. Tarular of Benden Weyr."

She inclined her head, accepting the name. "I am Marag of the Free, and you are welcome here. Grandfather and Grandmother will come to visit, now that you are awake, to welcome you as well."

"Your grandparents are the Holders?"

"There are no Holders here," she answered, which was no answer at all, and took the empty broth mug away from him and gave him the second mug, waited for him to choke it down. "You must rest more, but it will be easier now. I will be near, or you may have Sorroth call me." She enforced the order by removing pillows, pulling the blankets up over him, and closing the glowbaskets.

"Where—" he began, but she only went to a second bed-a second of many, all covered with more pieced quilts. "You stay here?"

"A healer must keep watch on her patients," she said, with another smile. "Now rest."

The medicinals were already kicking in, making him drowsy. _Sorroth? Does Nalith—_

Glowlight picked out Sorroth's eyes, their anxious whirling beginning to slow. _Nalith and Lorelith both. The Weyr knows we're safe._

_You should go bring help—_

_I can't. You were too ill and I was too worried when they brought you here. I cannot give coordinates to others. If I went _between_ to the Weyr, I would have to fly straight back, and I do not know that I can find this place again in the snow. It would look too different._

_But—_

_You cannot fly. Marag says so._

_Talking to Marag, are we?_ T'lur asked.

Sorroth ignored the jab. _You cannot fly until you are healed from the fever, and Marag says it can take a long time to completely recover. We are here until the Solstice at least. Nalith says that after the Solstice the Weyr should calm down and they may be able to send someone._

Of course. Fall should have started three years ago, and hadn't, but no one in the Weyr was willing to commit to a Long Interval, not just yet. K'til, for one, had sworn he would not discount Thread, _ever_, and since he was Weyrleader, every Solstice brought a renewed frenzy of activity just in case the Red Star appeared framed in the Eye Rock _this_ Turn.

Perhaps it was just as well. The annual panic, with its trips to Hold and Hall to check preparations and stores, and K'til's incessant drilling, took the heart out of the Weyr. No one had enjoyed Turn's Ending since the window for Threadfall had opened. T'lur, though, would be here, away from the madness, and in an obviously prosperous Hold that was well-stocked for the winter. A dragonrider was bound to be an honored guest at the Solstice and Turning festivals, even in a Hold where they didn't like using honorifics.

He yawned, and let the warm blankets and drugs soothe him into sleep. _Just as well..._

* * *

T'lur woke hungry, so hungry that at first he thought it was an echo from Sorroth-but Sorroth was curled up, asleep, in the next cave, his hide only a swatch of darker brown on the other side of that short tunnel. He pushed himself up, looking for Marag, but the bed he thought had been hers was empty, and so perfectly made that it could have been that way for months. The glowbaskets were open again—this room, wherever else it was, was too deep inside the rock for natural light.

With his brain clearer, he could see that there _was_ a fireplace, but no fire burned there; it looked like a cooking hearth, but what one of those would be doing in a barracks room, he could not imagine. Without a fire, how was it so warm? And the beds were made of _stone_, and far deeper than they needed to be.

"Fine morning, Tarular of Benden." Marag was coming through the door opposite Sorroth's tunnel, carrying another tray. "You look alert and rested."

Something in her voice made him ask, "How long this time?"

"Only a day and half another," she answered mildly. She was still in her black. He wondered if she owned any other color, and if there was a reason for it. Mourning, perhaps? On the whole, no one observed that old custom, but you could still find someone who marked their grief in their own way, here and there. "Do you hunger?"

"Hungry enough to eat a whole herdbeast. That's not broth, is it?"

"That depends." She placed one hand on his forehead, feeling it. "I think your fever has gone, at least. Now we have only to keep you from developing lung complications, and ensure that your leg mends properly. And for that you will need proper food." She began removing lids from the dishes on the tray. "A fine stew today, and klah, and if you eat sufficient, I shall wheedle a treat for you from the kitchen."

"You don't cook?" he asked, as she propped him up again and set the tray in his lap. It was old wood, polished dark and shiny with age, and it had legs that unfolded from the bottom to steady it in position and prevent spills. He wondered if one of the Crafthalls could produce something like this for the Weyr and the Healer Hall; it would certainly help bedridden patients who could otherwise feed themselves.

"We each have our tasks," she answered. "Brother Nathanel administers the kitchens."

"Your brother?"

"Not as you would know." She pressed a spoon into his hand. "Now, eat."

The stew was fish-based, but not fishy, and packed with chunks of tubers and slivers of greenery; the seasoning was unusual, notably short on salt, but not at all unpleasant. The bread was made of cornmeal, not wheat flour, but there was plenty of butter on it, and it was deliciously fresh. The klah was perfect. He devoured it all while she nibbled at a piece of bread; she must have already eaten. When he was done, she helped him out of bed, and supported him as he hopped across the room to the necessary—as finely appointed a room as any in the Weyr, with a pool in the attached bathing-room large enough to hold Sorroth.

"Have you enough energy for visitors still?" Marag asked as she tucked him back into his bed, which hadn't cooled at all in the time he'd been out of it; it was a delight to sink into, unlike the bed in his own weyr. "Grandmother and Grandfather wish to speak with you."

"I'd love to meet your grandparents," he said, putting all his considerable charm behind the words.

She gave him a strange look. "I will bring them," she said, packing up the tray.

It took nearly an hour for her to return, and she came accompanied by a much older man and woman—a man and woman wearing the same kind of black garments that Marag did, though this woman's breasts were far too full for anything less than a tent to conceal. Both wore the tight black caps. They couldn't _all_ be in mourning, or scarred. Did they actually shave their heads? As for the clothing, some of the more pretentious Lord Holders put their servants or personal guards in matching uniforms, but there were always individual variations, badges and rank-cords and other insignia, plus the natural variations of fabric and leather, and there were none of those. "Do you all dress alike?" he blurted.

"Yes, dragonrider, we do," the older woman snapped, in an accent thicker than Marag's. The man had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. Marag merely pulled up two stools for the grandparents to sit on and then disappeared into Sorroth's tunnel. "It is to demonstrate to outside eyes the equality we strive for."

"Equality, Lady...?"

Oh, were _those_ the wrong words; she immediately went from _suspicion_ to _rage_. "Do not use such titles with me, Tarular of Benden! I am not one of your so-called Holders, driven by greed to enslave everyone they touch! I am Tessa of the Free, and I serve now as Grandmother to the community, and that is all the title I need!"

"My apologies, ma—um—Grandmother," T'lur said quickly, "I did not mean to offend you, I thought—"

"We know what you thought," she snapped. "That we were part of your filthy system of Holds and Halls! But we are the Free and we are slaves to _none!_"

T'lur stared at her, open-mouthed in shock. He would have had an easier time believing the old woman if she'd claimed to have sprouted full-grown from Thread.

"Sister Tessa, you're scaring the young man." Grandfather was considerably younger than Grandmother Tessa, and apparently gentler. "He has been ill. We must explain first. _Then_ you may take offense, yes?" She subsided. "Welcome to the Community of the Free, Tarular of Benden," he said to T'lur. "Please forgive Grandmother's outburst—"

"I need no one speaking my words, Brother Charas."

"Mayhap now," he replied tartly. T'lur swallowed a grin; despite the clothes and thick accents, they reminded him of an old pair of weyrmates back at the Weyr, whose bickering was legend, and the making-up afterwards even more so. "Our ways are different from those of the rest of Pern."

T'lur wished heartily that Marag had stayed in the room. "I take it, Lor—um—sir, that you are not actually Marag's grandsire."

"I am not." He had the same accent, but seemed to choose his words more carefully, as if to ensure that T'lur understood him. "We are the community's chosen leaders. We arbitrate, mediate, and designate tasks. And welcome visitors, should any arrive."

"Do you have many?"

Grandfather chuckled. "I believe you are the first in at least seventy Turns." He sighed. "Possibly longer. There was once a family of Traders who would winter with us, and trade, but they have not come here in years. We fear they have gone _extinct_." T'lur had to wrangle with that word, but finally decided that Grandfather was afraid the Trader family had died out. "These rooms were always theirs when they stayed among us. Now they serve Marag for quarantine when there is illness that requires it. Your dragon sleeps where they kept their wagons and runners."

Yes, that fit with Sorroth's images of old stalls and hay, and his comment about the smell of runners. "Sir, however did you come to Ho—I mean, how did your community get _here?_ There isn't supposed to be anything up here!"

"So was our intent, Tarular. Our ancestors believed that the intentions of the ancients, those who first came to Pern, were being abandoned. After the Second Pass, when it became obvious that society was going astray—"

"No one came to Pern so that we might be abused!" Grandmother Tessa had apparently stayed quiet for as long as she could. "Bloodlines! Tithing! The Ancients would have rather eaten Thread than see us all reduced to slaves!"

"Slaves?" His head was starting to whirl, and he had the sinking feeling that he could only _wish_ it was a relapse of the fever or their strange speech making it so.

"We would not surrender our rights and lives to greedy men who called themselves Lords—"

"Or become nothing more than breeding stock!"

"That as well," Grandfather acknowledged. "Our ancestors, when they realized they could not change it, abandoned it."

"As was their right," Grandmother said quickly, "despite what those so-called Harpers would say about it! Insisting that everyone scrape and bow to every fool who calls himself a Lord Holder just because one of his ancestors was a capable organizer of scared, mindless fools! Better that we all be devoured by Thread!"

"Sister Tessa, please," Grandfather said, placing a restraining hand on her arm, and she quieted, letting him resume the tale. "After the Second Pass was completed and the danger from Thread done for a time, our ancestors sought a place of their own. They wandered for a while, as Traders still do, but as our numbers grew, the Holds and Halls began to persecute us—the Holds for not bowing, the Halls for not restricting our crafts to their command—the Harpers, especially, for we would not acknowledge that they had the right to determine which knowledge was forgotten and which preserved. So we came here, where we thought none would pursue us, and found this place to be ours, where we could live as we wished."

Second Pass. That meant nearly _two thousand _Turns. How had they stayed hidden so long? Traders loved to gossip; what possible oath could they have administered to keep a bizarre place like this a secret? "But—Thread—"

"Every child knows that Thread cannot bore through rock," Grandmother pointed out. "We used the knowledge that we retained to create our home here, inside a mountain. We know the patterns of Threadfall as well as any dragonrider, and there is always a watcher stationed in case of aberration. We simply bring everything inside."

Two thousand Turns. A dragon should have seen them. A Holder should have claimed the land.

_Wait._ He was north of Bitra, north of _Benden_, so far north that even the best maps listed it as nothing but "snowy wastes." How many Weyrleaders would waste dragons and firestone on Thread that fell on ice and rock? Certainly there would be sheltered valleys, but they were surrounded by bare rock that would stop Thread, and winter came so early and stayed so late that Thread would be frozen for most of the Turn anyway.

It was only accident that he and Sorroth had found them, and if he hadn't blundered off a cliff, Sorroth would have picked him up and headed _between_ to the Weyr and they would never have known how close they came. Riding patrol was about strengthening dragon wings and rider muscles to withstand a full Fall, and he and Sorroth had both believed the herd they'd found to be ferals. It _had_ been large, but this far into an Interval, that wasn't uncommon. Feral herds only died out during a Pass.

"I don't understand," T'lur said. "I'm sorry. I just don't—"

"That is well enough, young Tarular. We need only your word that you will not try to alter our ways."

"You will be restricted to this room and your dragon's if you cannot, and you will see no one but Marag."

"And the children," Grandfather added, "at least, until you can tend your dragon yourself."

A long stay here, with no one but Marag and Sorroth? He'd go mad, or worse.

_So they dress oddly and don't believe in Bloodlines._ Neither did most dragonriders, once they'd seen enough Hatchings to realize that having a bronze rider for a sire didn't guarantee that the son would Impress bronze, or Impress at all. Isolated Holds _always_ had quirks, whether accents, or wedding customs, or even special recipes. If it was anything _really_ terrible, he could always inform the Harpers, and let them fix it, as was their duty. Not _his_.

_Besides, a lot of Lord Holders _are_ greedy, and some of them _are_ incompetents who only Hold because their grandsires were born leaders._ "I am your guest," he finally said, "and I owe you my life. I won't knowingly try to alter any of your ways." Grandmother scowled, and he added, "But I may ask a lot of questions."

Grandfather laughed. "That is all to the good. Questions never harmed anyone. Sister Marag will be your guide as well as your healer."

"And she will report to us, so do not think you can sneak past us."

"Never, Grandmother," he answered politely, and Grandfather laughed again.

Grandmother's glare could have scorched Thread in the sky.

* * *

He slept most of the next sevenday—true rest, Marag called it, as opposed to the delirium of fever. Not until the last day was he awake enough to want to do anything besides eat. Marag and a helper—a silent teenager who wore black, but no cap; his hair was so long that the braid of it reached nearly to his waist—put the cast on that day, and once it had dried hard, she brought him a pair of wooden crutches as a silent announcement that he could now get out of bed under his own power. The crutches were old and polished shiny with age, but strong and well-used. Broken bones plagued every Hold, especially a Hold with children, who never seemed to learn what "danger" was until they got hurt. Or so his foster-mother had said the _first_ time he broke his leg, exploring the back tunnels of the Weyr.

He promptly limped out to Sorroth's "weyr." It was chillier here-if the pile of snow at the far end was any indication, it opened directly to the outside—but Sorroth, as usual, seemed perfectly comfortable. T'lur could not fault his dragon's care; there was not a speck of dirt nor a patch of dry hide on Sorroth, and his skin was a deep, healthy brown. A stone trough of clean water was nearby, with a small fire to keep it from freezing over, and buckets of clean snow were melting for more water. _Have you eaten?_ he asked, scratching the eye ridges.

_Three ovines,_ Sorroth said, leaning into the scratch. _Dead, but fresh kill._ He must have sensed T'lur's skepticism, because he quickly added, _They wanted to keep the wool and hide because they need it, but let me have the rest. It was a good meal. They raise good herds._

_No hunting?_ He didn't want to strip the Hold—fraggit, the _Community_; if he kept calling it a Hold, Grandmother would likely slap him into _between—_of its animals.

_The snow is too deep._ That came with an image of a cave entrance and a wall of snow. _Marag told me not to dig, unless I really needed to go out, and it's cold outside, colder than the Weyr. She says they can afford to feed me._

T'lur frowned. Their herds couldn't be that extensive—

_She says they have several stables, and their animals have been bred to survive the mountains on bad feed, and they have much fodder stored. They are good herders. Even the culls are juicy._

Ah. Instead of doing the usual winter culls at once, they had simply separated the undesirable animals and were using them to keep Sorroth fed. Smart thinking.

_They are smart people. They have made all this._ _The children tell me all about it. Tell Marag to show you so that I can see._

"Curiosity killed the watch-wher, you know," T'lur said, but he smiled as he did. Sorroth's curiosity about people and their houses was legend; when they were both weyrlings, conveying important personages about, he had once scared a Lady Holder out of several years by trying to poke his head in her unshuttered window.

_I am _not_ a watch-wher,_ came the insulted reply, and T'lur laughed.

* * *

Cleaned and fed, Sorroth wanted nothing more than to sleep, which was his usual behavior, but it left T'lur with nothing to do. Finally Marag gave in to his pleas for a tour. "In stages, though," she said, all healer again, and T'lur noted, to his surprise, that her accent seemed less. Was she learning modern speech from him and Sorroth, or was he just getting used to the way the Free spoke? "Not upstairs, not until you have more practice with your crutches. And you must let me know _immediately_ if you are cold or begin to cough. We must prevent a relapse."

With that, she took him into the cave next to his sleeping chamber, and into the most amazing dwelling he'd ever seen—and he had seen Fort, the Hold _and_ the empty Weyr, _and_ Ruatha, and even done his share of exploring the back tunnels of Benden as a boy, but he had never seen anything like this.

The cave system was natural—that much was obvious by the many corridors that connected the various rooms, rather than rooms opening directly into each other-but it had been steadily improved through the years, and not just by hollowing out chimneys, ventilation shafts, and plumbing. The entire complex was warm, far warmer than the best rooms of the Weyr, with heat radiating from odd pipes that ran through virtually every used corridor—from boiling hot springs below, Marag told him, and the same system was what made the beds so very warm, for each bed had a chamber beneath the mattress for a pipe to run. She even showed him the system of valves by which the flow of warm water could be shut off to one room, or even to one _bed_.

The cavern next door was as huge as the Hatching Ground. Massive metal doors closed out the winter but still allowed some cold, meaning it was chillier than his room, and a series of masonry walls toward the back served as baffles to keep the wind and cold away from entrances to other rooms. A wooden walkway, lined with storage crates, ringed the walls halfway up. On the ground floor, men (and probably women, though T'lur could not always tell the difference) worked on repairing empty wagons, or filling repaired ones with _dirt_, of all things. "The large ones are the wagons our ancestors used to travel here," Marag said proudly. "The smaller ones have been built since. With these, we can grow crops in the valley, where there is no soil, and bring them in safe from Thread and storm."

Movable crops. Little wonder they had survived so long without a Weyr's protection.

She led him to a series of small boxes, laid out on a worktable behind one of the protective baffles. "These are for herbs. I grow many medicinal plants in these."

"If there's no soil in the valley, where did you get this?"

"Some, from other valleys. Some, we are able to make. What we cannot use goes into the compost, which is used to replenish the soil as needed."

The composting took place in its own cave, which kept the smell down. There were other cultivation caves on the ground level, producing seven kinds of mushrooms, and an entire cave was dedicated to the production of the glows used so profligately that even the farm cavern was bright as day. A third room was dedicated to processing hides, a fourth to food preservation, and a fifth to processing flax and wool. Since most tithes to the Weyr came already processed, T'lur found the work fascinating, and hardly noticed when Marag slipped away.

Five minutes later, the man in charge of the crop-boxes (as the large wagons were called) had T'lur on a stool at a worktable with a shallow pan of soil, a jar of water, and a pile of dried beans, following the guidance of another worker to prepare them for "sprouting." "Fresh greens are necessary in winter," said the man, "to prevent diseases of malnutrition. Brother Daran will show you how to sprout these."

Marag didn't return for six trays, by which time T'lur's fingers were sore and his ears ached from Daran's constant chatter. Daran was oblivious to T'lur's attempts to steer the conversation towards topics that might help him understand the Free better, and talked mainly about—and possibly _to_—the future sprouts. "One more sight before supper," she said, "and you will have seen all that can be here."

"Then upstairs?" he asked.

"When I see that you have mastered the crutches," she replied, and led him through a maze of sturdier baffles on the far side of the cave.

The room into which they finally emerged was all pond, with a narrow walkway surrounding it. "You get the fish here!" T'lur exclaimed. "I thought you traded for them!"

"No. Freshwater, raised here." Marag pointed at a pipe near the ceiling that spouted onto a series of stone steps, forming an artificial waterfall into the pool. "That branches from one of the pipes that returns cool water to the boiling spring to be reheated. The falls allow it to cool enough that it does not cause temperature shock to kill the fish, but it remains warm enough that this end of the pool, at least, does not freeze solid." She pointed at the outer baffle, which actually went a few inches below the water's surface; in the wall next to it was a metal door. "It was originally just a small pool at the foot of a waterfall at the far end of the valley. We dug it out this far, and stocked it with river fish and plants. Even if Thread destroyed all our herds, we would still have fish for protein. In Thread summers, we don't even have to augment their feed with old bread."

"Cornbread?"

She nodded. "Wheat does not grow as well in the boxes. The fish do not know the difference."

"Is this the pond I fell into?"

"Yes. Outside, of course. Near the waterfall. The final winter preparations were being made." She chuckled. "You landed nearly on Brother Terron's head; he was harvesting molluscs from the bottom of the pond. I don't know that he would have forgiven you if you had not been so obviously ill."

"But he did?"

"Naturally. Now, come. Time for supper and then bed, before you overtire yourself."

"Yes, Healer Marag," he answered meekly, and limped after her.

* * *

T'lur spent his next days in a set pattern: assisting the children in scrubbing and oiling Sorroth in the morning, then being put to whatever "simple" task Brother Lurn of the crop-boxes, Sister Alisa of the mushroom caverns and glowroom, Sister Kala of the fishpond, or Brother Matar of the processing rooms felt he could handle. T'lur didn't mind the work, especially since the supervisors were very careful of his health and broken leg, but Sorroth's curiosity about the rest of the Hold was beginning to infect him. There was only so much he could learn by carding wool or finishing parchment leaves.

Besides, he _was_ a dragonrider, and while dragonriders might dabble in a craft during winter or while recovering from injury, a dragonrider's primary duty was _always_ to his dragon. A dragonrider was supposed to be an honored guest in a Hold, not a spare hand. Not that he was one of those riders who was above helping if the circumstances called for it, but he was hardly a help, since everything the Free did was sufficiently different from Hold and Weyr that the work of his boyhood was no training at all.

He was finally able to demonstrate his use of crutches on stairs to Marag's satisfaction (with Sorroth hovering near, like an anxious queen over a hatching clutch), and the rest of the H—_Community_ was opened to him. "You need exercise," Marag told him, and led him up several flights of stairs, upward-spiraling ramps, and angled corridors to the upper chambers.

Nothing he had seen before prepared him for this.

Caves that opened to the mountain meadows, no matter how small those meadows might be, had been made into stables; baffles mortared of rock from stonefalls and excavations served to keep Thread and gusty winds out. Each meadow had its own herd, precisely sized so that they wouldn't overgraze. The animals themselves were all small, compact, and heavily furred, with even the bovines boasting coats that could be sheared and spun; mountain beasts, undoubtedly, bred over the Turns into creatures who could produce more than ample meat, milk, and wool from the worst grazing on Pern. No canines tagged at the herders' heels, but felines wandered everywhere, sleek and well-fed. He'd never seen so many felines in one Hold.

"Canines have slavish temperaments," Marag told him when he asked. "They will do anything to please a master. Felines, on the other hand, know no masters, and are just as adept with the snakes."

T'lur started to ask if the Free did anything that _wasn't_ symbolic, but thought better of it. Besides, he knew the answer.

The animal caves were kept warm with fires—burning the dung of the very animals they warmed, rather than wood or coal, to his astonishment; it had never occurred to him that the stuff could be dried and used for fuel—but only enough to keep it comfortable for their habitation, and to keep the weak ones from freezing. It was much colder in any one of the stable caves than in the main corridors, and the stables all boasted actual metal doors on the inner entrances, to prevent heat loss, which few of the indoor rooms did. Some had curtains, but privacy was apparently not a priority among the Free.

The usual workrooms—spinning, weaving, sewing, carving, metalwork, even a pottery—were all present, and compared to the agricultural workrooms downstairs, they were packed. With the harvest stored away, most of the workers had obviously been put to other tasks for the winter. It wasn't a matter of women's work, either; there were men in the weaving room and a woman at a forge. Older children, their hair still long, ran errands and carried trays of snacks and klah from the unseen kitchen to the workers, and teenagers pushed wheeled barrows of finished materials to storage. Felines roamed free here as well, sometimes catching rides on the barrows or romping with the children.

Most impressive of all were the hotrooms, built into caves that had once opened to the south. Those openings were now bricked up with glass blocks—thick and bubbly, fit to let sunlight in but as impervious to wind and cold as a masonry wall. More of the ubiquitous pipes connected these rooms directly to the springs, and those pipes were in places wide enough to sit a kettle of water on; those kettles constantly simmered if not boiled, creating as hot and humid an atmosphere as Nerat could boast. The plant-boxes in these rooms contained frail southern herbs, numbweed, needlethorn and _ging_ (both behind protective hide barriers, so that the thorns didn't fly into the room), and even, in one room, a row of carefully pruned fellis and redfruit trees in massive clay pots.

"Our ancestors knew how to train a tree into smallness," Sister Taralia, the sister in charge of the tree room, told him, "and we retain that knowledge. This one—" she pointed at a lushly fruiting redfruit "—is nearly a thousand Turns old, and has lived its entire life in that pot." A bell rang, and the sister bowed and ushered them into the hall, and left without so much as a farewell.

"Supper," Marag explained. "Grandmother is very strict about being on time."

"Of course she is," T'lur sighed.

* * *

He hardly slept that night for thinking, and Sorroth asked more questions than a small child filled with bubblies. By the time the children arrived to help him scrub the dragon, he was finished and Sorroth was ready for oiling.

Marag brought a breakfast tray down, as usual, with additional snacks and klah for the children. "He started without us, Mother Marag!" little Satha complained.

"He did, did he?" She gave T'lur a stern look. "Fear not, Satha. If he has ruined his cast with the scrubbing, I shall be sure to take it out of his hide."

"My cast is fine." _Mother_ Marag? What did that mean? "I wrapped it in leather."

She did not look as if she approved. "Children, if Sorroth has been tended and the water refilled, it is time for you to go upstairs."

"But he started _early!_"

"That is Tarular's privilege, Baral. These are the rules that Grandmother and Grandfather set. Now, go." She waited until the children had obediently climbed up the back stair, then gave him another stern look. "Let's see to that cast."

"Are you Satha's mother?" he asked, sitting down on a rock so that she could unwrap the leather.

"No."

"Then why—"

"It is the proper way for children to address their elders. Just as we address each other as Sister and Brother."

He frowned. "They have to call anybody older _Mother?_"

"No. Just anyone who they cannot remember as a child. Anyone who they _can_ remember as sharing the creche is a peer, and a Sister or Brother." She paused, then added, "Mother is also the proper address for any woman who has borne a child."

Sorroth gave a sudden snort, making T'lur look at her. "You have children?"

"Three."

"Are you married?" He would never have asked that in a Weyr, but here, things were so confusing...

"Marriage is a form of slavery."

He'd half expected that answer; everything familiar about his world seemed to be a form of slavery to them. He kept waiting for someone to tell him how badly he'd abused Sorroth by Impressing him. At the same time, though... There _were_ reasons why girls, especially, were so desperate to get to the Weyr, where they weren't expected to spend their lives pregnant in order to provide a husband sons. In some places, they didn't even have the honor of being the _only_ wife, and the Lords... "How do you avoid inbreeding?" He had discovered that if he kept his questions to practical matters, the Free were much more eager to provide answers, he understood the answers better, and nobody got insulted.

"Breeding is carefully documented and controlled," she answered absently. "I see no damage to the cast—"

"How do you control—um—" _Breeding_ made it sound like she was talking about runnerbeasts, but _sex_ was probably too crude—

"Such control would be impossible," she said cheerfully. "There is a plant we know, from which a medicine can be made that prevents conception. All women take it, unless a pregnancy is their intention, and that only happens when Mother Grina arranges a match. She is in charge of keeping the records and ensuring that children are only born to unrelated families, with little history of defect." She looked up. "Yes."

"Yes what?"

"We breed ourselves like the herdbeasts. Is that not what you were thinking?"

He glared at Sorroth. _Traitor_.

_I said nothing. But you _were_ thinking that._

_If you didn't tell her, then how did she—_

_She's a smart woman._ Sorroth's tone made it plain that he wasn't sure his rider qualified as "smart."

"It is a sacrifice we are willing to make," Marag went on, oblivious—or, at least, seemingly oblivious—to the conversation between rider and dragon. "Our population is too small to allow any risk of inbreeding. When the Traders ceased to visit, we lost that method of adding new blood. But we live free of Hold and Hall. It is a small price to us."

"Do you ever get to choose your own lovers?" The question slipped out before he thought to stop it.

"Lovers, yes. The fathers of our children? Sometimes, if Mother Grina finds nothing to prevent it. She prefers that a woman bear children to many men, however." She shrugged. "It has not been a great difficulty for me. Others have more trouble. Do you need help?"

"Help?" he echoed. Had she just offered—was she—

"Standing." She offered him a hand to help him off the rock and handed him the crutches. "Be more careful of that cast, Tarular. If you soak it, it will have to be removed and redone. And if I must do that, I will take the crutches until you learn better responsibility."

"Yes, Masterhealer." She shot him a glare, and he laughed.

* * *

Any caves with openings to the outside had been made into hotrooms or stables, so life within the Community of the Free was lit only by glows, and there was no sense of time. This far north, Marag said, the sun would not even rise above the horizon near Solstice, assuming the storms broke long enough for anyone to see if the sun was there or not. The bells that regulated life upstairs couldn't be heard in T'lur's room; were it not for Sorroth's mental nudges, telling him it was time for a bath or feed, he'd sleep the day away. Rather like Sorroth did, but Sorroth did that every winter.

Marag put him in every room over the next few weeks, even the creche where the youngest children were raised as a single large family by several adults, but he found himself staying downstairs more than not. The agricultural workers weren't as quick to take offense as some of the ones upstairs, and—more importantly—Grandmother was not often seen here, as she spent her time in the quilting room and creche. He was never going to be as fast at sprouting as Brother Daran, but he could catch fish and butcher carcasses and do some leather-work, and he'd spent enough time changing glows as a weyrling to be useful in the glowroom. When Marag replaced the large cast with a lighter one, with an oversized sandal tied around it so that he could walk on it, he took over glow-duty for the entire floor.

Sorroth was going _between_ and outside now and then, and had dug out the snow blocking the entrance to his makeshift weyr, but the riding straps he had worn when T'lur fell ill had been left in a corner of the cave too long; they'd dried out, past the point of saving. Sister Madrena gave him hides to make into new straps, but there was no reason to hurry the process and every reason not to, especially when Sorroth announced that the Red Star had not appeared in the Eye Rock on Solstice dawn and therefore no Thread would fall again this year. No search for T'lur was forthcoming, not as long as Sorroth was still in contact with Nalith; other crises distracted the Weyrleader. Before the days started lengthening, K'til was up to his neck in complaints from Holders who wanted to believe that Thread was gone and, therefore, the Weyr should follow—or, at least, not require so much in the way of tithes and Search-rights.

The Free did not share that doubt. When he related the tale, even Brother Daran—who could be counted on to ramble for an hour on any given topic—just gave him a blank look and said, "Little wonder we left."

Marag removed the cast and deemed his leg healed just as he finished sewing the new straps, just as the first signs of spring began showing in a slow thaw. It should have been a matter of saying his goodbyes and climbing onto Sorroth's back, but Sorroth wouldn't cooperate.

"Hold still!" T'lur finally shouted, his voice echoing through the cavern so loudly that someone came running to check on him—from upstairs, _and_ from the cavern where work on the crop-wagons was increasing in preparation for warm weather. He wrestled the straps onto Sorroth and sent the concerned investigators off. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

_I like it here,_ Sorroth grumbled sullenly.

T'lur tugged hard at a strap, making sure the buckle held. "We can't stay here, Sorroth. We have an obligation to Pern."

_Thread is not falling, and if it does, we can be at the Weyr—_

"That includes our obligation to our Wings. We have to practice, in case Thread decides to arrive after all." Sorroth grumbled. "Nothing stops us from visiting any Hold on Pern. Not even the ones that don't formally exist."

_It's not the same._

"Dragonriders belong in the Weyr." It was an automatic reaction, drilled into him as a weyrling.

_You like it here too._

"Not enough to live here." That much, at least, was true; he couldn't wait to see people wearing colors, or a grown woman with a glorious fall of hair, or to sink his teeth into a loaf of real bread. He buckled the final strap. "Now stay there until I get my riding leathers on, and we'll take a sweep around the valley."

One sweep turned into hours of flying; Sorroth was eager to spread his wings after the winter's inactivity, and T'lur had almost forgotten the thrill of being in the sky, just him and Sorroth. His leg ached a bit in the cold, along the newly-healed breaks, but otherwise he felt fine. It was Sorroth who put an end to the ride, claiming Marag was calling for them.

She was waiting in Sorroth's cave. "You are leaving," she said softly.

He hadn't planned to leave right then, but after a moment's thought, he changed his mind. "We have to."

"So Sorroth told me." She came over, and Sorroth lowered his massive head for a scratch. "Grandfather and Grandmother said you would."

"You didn't believe them?"

"I hoped otherwise." She smiled. "I suppose it would be too much for a dragonrider to become a Brother."

"I do rather like my hair," he answered, deadpan, and she laughed, just as he'd hoped.

"Grandmother and Grandfather wish me to tell you that Sorroth and Tarular of Benden are always welcome among the Free," she said.

"I can bring you—"

"Not as a trader. As yourself. Sorroth knows the way, whatever else he may tell you." Sorroth snorted and gave her an unhappy nudge. "Dragonriders and their dragons belong in the Weyr," she reminded him, stroking his head gently. "But they can visit where they will."

"Would you welcome us back?" he asked. "Not Grandmother and Grandfather. You."

She looked at him, her eyes dark, and smiled. "Salt."

"What?"

"I would very much like to have salt again," she said, "as we have not had any since I was a little girl." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and walked away.

* * *

"So T'lur returned to Benden, but when Thread did not Fall, he came to spend more and more time away, until the day when he and Sorroth vanished entirely, and all T'lur's belongings with them. Some said they were lost _between_, but the dragons did not keen for them. It is said he went to live among the Free, that occasionally a brown rider would appear in Southern Holds to barter for fruit and salt and wheat flour. Many riders tried, but none ever found the mountain where the Free lived. Some even doubt that T'lur was a rider at all, or that Sorroth was a dragon, but their names appear in the Records, so we must agree that they existed. And some day, perhaps, when we have no Thread to worry about, some other dragonrider will ride patrol and find that hidden Hold that is not a Hold, far in the northern mountains."

The entranced children burst into applause, and though some begged for more, B'tor shook his head. This was no Harper performance that came with encores; B'tor's story was told only once, when he agreed to tell it. The Lower Cavern headwoman saved him from their pleadings by storming in to shoo them to their beds.

As the children dispersed, B'tor saw a flash of Harper blue in the back of the room—Derrit, the new Weyrsinger. Very much a traditionalist, especially for a Harper so young. B'tor hoped he outgrew it when he finally Impressed, if any dragon would have him. (Privately, he hoped for a green for Derrit, to loosen up those stuffy Hold morals.) "Now I see why V'kal said I should hear that," he said, his voice tight. "That's an unapproved—"

"I wasn't aware that the Harper Hall was in the business of dictating what tales a man could tell in his own home."

"You present it as fact—"

"All legends are presented as fact."

"And when those children grow up convinced that somewhere in the mountain there's an entire Hold of insane people denying the most basic facets of society? What if they decide they don't have to respect Lord Holders because these imaginary people don't?"

"That would be why, as agreed to by V'kal, I only tell it to children who have mastered all their Teaching Songs. It's a special treat for them on cold winter nights—"

"Not anymore." Derrit's voice was hard. "We can't have riders filling children's heads with nonsense about heated beds and growing corn in wagons—"

"More nonsense than fire-lizards and talking shipfish?" B'tor retorted. "The Masterfarmer himself has said that such wagons would be a clever way of reclaiming land and protecting crops from Thread. And there is nothing in the story that could not be created by the kind of people who carved Fort Hold from solid rock. Even the Harper Hall admits the ancients had knowledge far beyond ours."

"Fire-lizards and talking shipfish do not imply that the Hall works to enslave the people of Pern," Derrit snarled, "or that Lord Holders are all greedy and useless, and that the Crafts force unwilling children into apprenticeships—"

_And what of fathers who will not allow their children to seek their own paths but insist that every child follow his own Craft?_ "The tale says only what the Free believed, not what _we_ believe."

"I don't care!" B'tor raised an eyebrow, and Derrit visibly struggled for control. "This is your only warning, B'tor. If I hear that story told by any adult again, I will lodge a formal complaint with the Masterharper _and_ the Weyrleader and see that yo—the perpetrator is _severely_ punished. Do you understand?"

B'tor answered with a mocking bow, and strode down the corridor away from the Harper. To tell a man what stories he could tell on a snowbound night in the _Weyr_, of all places—

His anger woke Camath, who rumbled as B'tor entered their weyr. _Why are you so angry?_ the dragon asked sleepily.

"I've just been _ordered_ not to tell the children about the Free anymore."

Camath's head jerked up, his eyes suddenly whirling. _Who dares? What harm is a story?_

"Derrit, the new Weyrsinger. He thinks it defames the Hall." He glanced at his bed; he'd find no sleep there, only dwelling on anger. He snatched up the furs and settled down beside Camath, with the dragon's bulk warming him and cutting off any wind from outside.

_We know the truth,_ Camath said, giving him a comforting nudge, and sheltering him with a wing.

"That we do," B'tor said. "What say we take a trip, once the weather clears?"

Camath considered—mulling this over, B'tor knew. Knowledge of the Free defied everything known about draconic memory; it was the brown dragons, not their riders, who kept secret the locational coordinates, and they remembered them from the time they were first told. Not all brown riders learned the truth of the Free and the browns' Covenant, just those the dragons deemed worthy of the secret. Journeys to the Free were, therefore, at the discretion of the dragons. Riders had to pay, bringing in materials the Community couldn't produce: cotton, wheat, cane sugar, table salt, southern fruit; even, on rare occasions, babes or small children left orphaned with no kin to claim them.

B'tor wondered, sometimes, if _all_ browns knew, or if it was like some Craft secret, passed down only to the worthy. _He_ certainly wouldn't trust Menarth with a secret, and Camath had much better sense.

_It _has_ been awhile since I had a good scrub from the children,_ Camath finally said. _And since you saw Vana._

"Yes, it has." He smiled, thinking of Vana and their children—and the rumors that ran amok in the Lower Caverns about his lack of a "proper" weyrmate.

_When the weather breaks, we will go to Nerat and pick fresh fruit for the children, and you can take jungle flowers to Vana. She likes flowers._

"No wonder she likes you."

Camath made a noise, and butted his head against B'tor's. _Sleep. You will need it if we are to see the Free. _

B'tor smiled again, rested one hand fondly against Camath's soft hide, and let his dragon's heartbeat and thoughts of Vana lull him to sleep.

**_the end_**


End file.
